Mortar
__NOEDITSECTION__ "The Mortar can mow down hordes of enemies by the splash damage from its shell. Don't let enemies get too close to it!" ---- ---- *'Summary' **Mortars are the player's heavy defenses. Whenever an enemy comes into range, it blasts out an explosive shell that deals area damage. **Starting at level 8, the Master Builder in the Builder Base can Gear Up a single Mortar to make it resemble a Multi Mortar. The geared up Mortar will fire its shots in bursts of three. ***Your Multi Mortar, however, needs to be level 8. **Mortars shoot long-range explosive shells every 5 seconds which deal devastating splash damage to every ground unit within a small radius of the impact point. Their splash damage, combined with their long range, make them deadly weapons against large groups of weaker enemies such as Barbarians, Archers, or Goblins. Multiple mortars can sweep away giants and wizards. **The Mortar shell's explosion is so powerful that it knocks back smaller Troops. It is possible that a troop, after getting knocked back, will change their targets depending on the current situation. **A Mortar's major disadvantages are its inability to attack troops within its 4-tile blind spot, its low rate of fire and low DPS which makes them less effective against high-health troops. It also cannot attack air troops, such as Balloons. **The Mortar's low Damage per Second is due to its very slow firing speed; multiplying its DPS by 5 (its hit speed) will give you its damage per shot, which is the important stat for Mortars. **Due to the fact that the Mortar's shell takes a while to reach its target (over a second at maximum range), fast troops like Goblins can easily dodge its attack if they are moving when the Mortar fires. ---- *'Defensive Strategy' **Mortars should generally be placed towards the center of your base, preferably behind at least one set of Walls, because its long range allows the Mortar to attack from far behind other structures. **Since the Mortar deals heavy splash damage, it can quite rapidly eliminate attacking troops. **It is smart to form a triangle or square with your Mortars near the center of your base, as this allows multiple Mortars to attack the same area. **At each level, the Mortar can kill a same-level Archer in a single shot. i.e. A level 1 Mortar can one-shot level 1 Archers, level 2 can one-shot level 2 Archers, etc. **At lower Town Hall levels, the Mortar is an extremely important defense as it will easily be able to destroy Barbarians and Archers. **Putting a Mortar and Wizard Tower together makes a smart pair because the Mortar covers a large area while the Wizard Tower helps protect the Mortar from mass air troops and covers the Mortar's blind spot. ***However, it is not a very good idea to place the two towers right next to each other (or separated by a single wall), because two or three appropriately leveled Lightning Spells can take them out easily. Try to put another building in between them if possible. **It is a good idea to place Mortars near each other, without putting them in the same wall pocket (if possible). When more than one Mortars' range overlaps, it creates a kill-zone where almost no low-health troops can survive. **Take care when upgrading, as many players use this as a chance to attack. For this reason, it is a good idea to only upgrade one Mortar at a time. However, upgrading all of them at once is also viable, as it gets the upgrades out of the way quickly, leaving you more time to benefit from all Mortars being online and maxed out at your current Town Hall level. ***This can be done when you have a Shield enabled. **A good strategy placement against all types of attacks is putting your mortar by a Wizard Tower and an Air Defense with a storage. The storage acts as a damage sponge, while the defenses will take out hordes of troops. **At high levels where Mortars may be less relevant, you can place them outside your Walls, in the corners, to prevent Archers from easily sniping other non-defensive buildings. However, without additional protection, these buildings are vulnerable to Wizards or Minions, the former being able to survive a shot or two from the Mortar while the latter is invulnerable to the Mortar. *'Offensive Strategy' **The Mortar's blind spot, low rate of fire, and inability to target air troops make them vulnerable to a wide variety of different attacks. Fast melee troops such as Barbarians or Goblins (after all resource structures are destroyed) can rush to the Mortar and quickly enter its blind spot. Unfortunately, Archers will always stop and begin firing at a Mortar before they enter its blind spot, so pairing them with a meat shield is ideal. **The Mortar's relatively low hit points make it very vulnerable to Giants and Lightning Spells. It takes only a pair of appropriately-leveled Lightning Spells to take out any Mortar. **Their inability to target air troops makes Mortars easy pickings for Balloons, Dragons and Minions if they are not covered by Air Defenses. **When deploying troops, try to avoid deploying low hit point ground troops in clumps. The Mortar does great splash damage unless a Healing Spell is in hand. **If a building is protected only by a Mortar, using a Wizard or two can easily destroy it if you are using a ground attack. ---- *'Upgrade Differences' **Mortars undergo significant visual changes at levels 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 and 11. ***When initially constructed, the Mortar consists of a solid black launcher tube with two half-disc gimbals on each side. ***At level 2, the Mortar gets a gold ring around the muzzle and becomes larger. ***At level 3, the Mortar becomes larger and the gimbals loses two studs. ***At level 4, the Mortar's gimbals change to a bright golden color gain back the studs, and it sports a wider, pitted ring of gold trim. ***At level 5, the Mortars gold rim reaches its greatest width, losing the studs on the gimbals again and a ring on the gimbals reverts back to grey metal. ***At level 6, the Mortar's exterior turns entirely golden with the studs return and the gimbals complete gold again. ***At level 7, the Mortar's exterior reverts to a shinier black with golden trim, but acquires a skull on the rim of each gimbals (which turn black as well), the studs on it turns into gold spikes. A bone and a skull is laid on the ground in front of the Mortar. ***At level 8, the Mortar's color becomes metallic, and the barrel's internals glows with what appears to be lava, spikes appear on the golden ring around the top of the Mortar on new plates that reinforces the barrel. The gimbals of the Mortar also becomes bigger in a somewhat trapezoid shape with four spikes on it, two on top and one each on the side, the rim of skull is replaced by five small spikes. The skull decoration on the floor are also removed. ***At level 9, the plating becomes white stone, and the barrel gets bigger and more elongated, and gains rifling. The number of spikes on the gimbals is reduced to three, while the spikes on the rim become one huge spike instead of five small ones. There is a gold chain connecting the two halves of the gimbals. The projectile becomes slightly larger, has more bulk to it, and rotates when it flies through the air. ***At level 10, the gimbals gains red stone and the spikes on it becomes thicker. The rifling in the barrel disappears and the glow from the inside of the barrel becomes much more intense which made the barrel red hot even on the outside. The white stone plating is thicker but there are less of them and the gap between plate are bigger as well, there are two spikes on the plate and they are larger as well. The barrel greatly increases in size. ***At level 11, the gimbals are now replaced with black metal with golden links; each gimbals has a brownish metal piece which is bolted to the building. The Mortar's exterior now consists of black metal spiked plates which also covers the exposed part of the barrel before, and there is a golden studded band around the muzzle, the studs are in the same placement as the spikes it replaced. ***At level 12, the base of the gimbals gain two golden spikes reinforcement and the bolt also changes to a spike. The studded band around the muzzle is replaced with a spiked one and the plates now alternates with the spikes instead of lining up, the sank-in part now is golden. **The appearances of the Mortar shells change with level. *** When first constructed, it is a gray stone shell with some dark smoke particle trailing it. *** At level 2 and 3, it become bigger. *** At level 4, it becomes a black stone, the size got reduced a bit. *** At level 5, it becomes bigger again. *** At level 6, it is slightly molten as the surface have cracks of glowing liquid rock, the smoke particle turns into small explosions. The explosions when it hits the ground now glows as well. *** At level 8, it becomes a lot bigger, with each of the cracked surface now has a spike and the cracks being wider. *** At level 9, it is a very irregular shaped metal with holes and bumps on the surface. *** At level 10, it is a dodecahedron with gaps between the pentagons, each pentagon has a spike. ---- *'Trivia' **There is an Achievement called Mortar Mauler that rewards a player for destroying a certain number of Mortars in raids. **Every time a Mortar shell impacts the ground, it shakes it slightly. **The Mortar has the least hit points of all maximum-level Defensive Buildings. **The Mortar is one of the three Defensive Buildings (along with the Cannon and X-Bow) that rotate themselves to aim at different targets, as the Air Defense is made of rockets, while the others are towers. These three face away from the Town Hall when the village is not under attack. ru:Мортира de:Minenwerfer es:Mortero fr:Mortier nl:Mortier hu:Mortar pl:Moździerz zh:迫击炮 Category:Buildings Category:Defenses Category:Home Village